Missing Elliott In A Big Way Today, I can't stop crying..... Options

[Mikki]

I see him everywhere. I keep praying please god, send him back I can't take this. I keep looking out the window where we buried him. We have another cat, 2 dogs and 2 birds and yet the house feels EMPTY. Why is that? Because he was everywhere and into everything. We yelled at him constantly and yet he was also tremendously affectionate. Crawled into bed with me every night. I can't stop crying. I have this permanent heavy feeling on my chest and I keep thinking it might have been okay to keep him alive for a bit longer, maybe we could have enjoyed him for a couple more weeks.....I am really missing his fine chiseled features and his enormous owlish eyes and his stiff prickly whiskers. I miss my Elliott and I keep crying and the dogs just stare at me. Our 'family' does not feel the same anymore. Grief is so horrible, it's just the most gut-wrenching thing and I can't imagine that our home will ever feel as normal and joyous as it used to......I dont' know what to 'do' to pull myself out of this more quickly, I am so, so SAD. This HOUSE does not feel RIGHT without him! I miss him coming up and snuggling under my left arm while I'm sitting on the couch (always the left arm for some reason....he never wanted to curl up under the right arm). I hate this......every single room is a reminder that he no longer exists. He doens't exist and that causes me so much pain. I miss my cats, all my darling, sweet and unique boys: Elliott, Jet and Arliss. Death is a hateful thing and I am really finding it difficult to see the sense in it all. There is an enormous gaping hole in my house. I so want to know that he is okay and knows how much we cherished him. I can't stop crying! WHERE is he? I just want to feel him near me, but I am not getting anything but this big hole. Just a big gaping, aching HOLE.......

[Zita'sMom]

We have another cat, 2 dogs and 2 birds and yet the house feels EMPTY. ...I am not getting anything but this big hole. Just a big gaping, aching HOLE.......

Mikki

It's too bad you don't live next door then we could commiserate together... Nobody in my immediate circle and family (though they all are animal lovers) really "gets" the depth of my grief. I think they just think I'm a nut case. My Ziggy was a special cat that I adopted after my grief of Zita going missing last October. So now I am grieving two cats. I believe Ziggy has shown her presence, but I completely feel the same huge gaping hole you talk about.

Sometimes these little critters are the "one" comfort we have that gives us joy in the turbulence of life. When they leave us it we don't have the "escape" they offer us. I'm not sure what to do with that thought exactly. Today I went to the ocean and just sat for several hours with my dog. I still feel like crap! I do believe in life after death, it just doesn't make the physical part of it any easier.

By the way I have 5 dogs and another cat, and I love them all to bits, but Ziggy's personality was HUGE and so lovely.

The only thing I could sorta do to cope today was the affirmation - "I have peace in this moment." Just trying to focus on my breathing and in the very present moment and not all the nightmarish thoughts that keep circling round my head.

take care

Jan.